FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ELKRIDGE - PAGE 3

The fate of a $2.64 million deal for a new elementary school site in Elkridge remains unclear, with the property owners embroiled in a dispute over a lien that has delayed the project. If the Howard County school system cannot purchase a 10.1-acre site from Ducketts Ridge LLC, school officials will have to look elsewhere to open a 600-seat elementary school. The new school, which officials had hoped to open by August 2013, is needed to ease projected growth at Bellow Springs, Deep Run and Elkridge elementary schools in the northeastern part of the county.

An elegant marble statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary graces the entrance to St. Augustine School in Elkridge, moved there by alumni of the shuttered Cardinal Gibbons School. The sculpted image of a veiled young woman stands beneath a large white cross and above a memorial plaque. When Charlotte "Sis" Slavotinek learned that the archdiocese was closing the all-boys Catholic high school two years ago, she insisted that the statue, dedicated to her son Michael, his two classmates and their teacher who died in a 1968 plane crash, be relocated.

Elizabeth E.W. Kirk has planned to be buried alongside her mother, Beatrice, and her family dogs at the Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park in Elkridge, believed to be one of the world's first pet cemeteries to allow people to be laid to rest with their animal companions. Her name is already set into the grassy turf there, on a bronze plaque with a photograph of her as a young woman snuggled in bed with five dogs. But now the 69-year-old worries that her final resting place may have to be someplace else.

The Elkridge teenager shot by Howard County police a week ago died over the weekend, Howard County police said. Police described the incident that took place last Monday afternoon as a standoff, saying that Jeffrey Dustin Nichols, 19, refused to drop a handgun. Officers, called to Elkridge for reports of shots fired, followed Nichols along railroad tracks to an area behind an industrial park 7400 block of Hi Tech Drive, where he again refused to drop the weapon and was shot eight times.

A three-vehicle collision with injury in Elkridge on MD 100 West past U.S. 1 has closed the westbound right traffic lane and westbound right shoulder at 8:47 a.m. on Monday, according to the state Department of Transportation. DOT also reported at around 8:50 a.m. the clearing of a crash in South Gate on MD 100 East at the Interstate 97 exit, reopening the eastbound right shoulder. The Baltimore City Department of Transportation said at 8:15 a.m. on Monday that a traffic arrow board has obstructed the right lane on northbound Hanover Street and Waterview Avenue, causing severe traffic delays.

Four candidates in the Howard County Board of Education primary election hail from the county's northeast region, an area that historically has been devoid of board representation. Olga Butler and Corey Andrews of Elkridge, and Leslie Kornreich and Christine O'Connor of Hanover each ran in the previous election, and Kornreich has run twice. They are among 13 candidates vying for four seats on the seven-member board. The board is non-partisan and members serve at large. Candidates from other areas of the county are Bess Altwerger of Columbia; Tom Baek and Cynthia L. Vaillancourt of Clarksville; Dan Furman of Simpsonville; and Zaneb Beams, Allen Dyer, Maureen Evans Arthurs, Sandra French and Mike Smith, all of Ellicott City.